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Of course it’s Michael Bay-ariffic in that adorably ultraviolent, homophobic kinda way, all vehicles exploding for no apparent reason and deeply repressed male emotions, the kind of stuff that can’t help but lead one to the conclusion that Michael Bay is denying that he has some serious issues with, really, just about everything he comes into contact with: women, men, cars, swimming pools, family pets, home electronics.
I approached my parked car after the screening, I found myself wishing it was something a little zippier than a poky little Saturn, and boy I bet a Saturn would be pretty cool tricked out for street racing. And as I drove home, I found myself wondering if those buttons on either side of the steering wheel would ignite the tanks of nitrous oxide under the backseat. (No — they were still for the horn.)
Their *Chicago* — based on the stage musical by John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse — is utterly singable, danceable, cheerable, with musical numbers that straddle the unwillingness of today’s movie audiences to suspend our disbelief about movie characters breaking into song unless they’re Disney lions or talking candelabra.
Steven Spielberg has never made a film like this one before, sharp and bright, lighthearted and witty, underplayed and — dare I say it? — hip.
There’s not a thing that isn’t hauntingly, quietly electrifying about this, the first truly grown-up comic book movie. Fans of the medium have known for years that the form had no trouble being Important, but the film industry (though perhaps not all filmmakers themselves) has stubbornly insisted on treating comic adaptations as juvenile.
Sequels are hard. Science fiction sequels are a bitch. Every once in a rare while, we get an ‘Empire Strikes Back’ or an ‘Aliens,’ a sequel that expands and deepens the original, a sequel better than the original. Usually, alas, we get ‘Highlander II.’ ‘Men in Black II’ is, thankfully, no ‘Highlander II.’ But it ain’t no ‘Aliens,’ neither.
It sends a shiver up my spine just thinking about the movie now, even as I gaze out the window onto a gorgeous, happy, sunshiny day. It’ll be great when this one finally comes out on DVD, cuz then I’ll be able to curl up on the couch in the middle of the night wrapped in an old afghan for protection and give myself the wild heebie-jeebies watching it.
Are you up for a little larceny that may be dangerous but is too much fun to pass up? Are you up for a smart dumb movie, the kind of delicious popcorn flick you get when some of the most talented and most watchable people in the biz let their hair down? Cuz this ain’t a movie that’s been fortified with vitamins and minerals or morals or anything good for you — this is pure cinematic junk food of the highest, tastiest order.
It takes a wolf to catch a wolf, says Los Angeles narcotics detective Alonzo Harris. All us little sheep need a wolf on our side to protect us from the other wolves. But shouldn’t we be afraid that “our” wolf might turn on us one day, and even if he doesn’t and keeps the dangerous wolves at bay, isn’t it only wolves who win in the end?
But cast Tilda Swinton in the role of, as she is offhandedly referred to by a bit player here, “somebody’s mom,” and all of a sudden you’ve got a story about domestic discord that is compulsively watchable.
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